Team,
Check out my interview with Rob Schmitt on Newsmax.
President Trump went to Beijing with one goal: to keep things stable in a way that preserves a very strong position for the United States vis-à-vis China.
With the Donroe Doctrine, the Boss has kicked China out of Venezuela and Cuba, and the U.S. now controls the supply of oil from the Strait of Hormuz to China and East Asia.
Something to clear up is that we are not selling China steaks and hamburgers. We’re selling them offal, which is our leftover cuts: parts like tongues, tendons, tripe, and tails.
This deal was a top ask from U.S. ranchers who want to sell the stuff Americans don’t eat for added value, and it will have no impact on beef prices in the U.S.
In the interview, Rob asks if we’re giving China an economic lifeline as they’re struggling.
Not at all.
We see what the Chinese have done since the days of Nixon, and are responding in kind.
Peter
TRANSCRIPT
ROB SCHMITT: Peter Navarro is the Senior Counselor to Trump for trade and manufacturing, joins us now from the White House. Peter, good to see you. How did we do in China, sir?
DR. NAVARRO: Well, let me focus first on this beef thing. I want to clear that up. We’re not selling them steaks and hamburgers. We’re selling them offal. You know what offal is? That’s the stuff Americans don’t eat. So, it’s not going to have any impact on beef prices here in America. Now, here’s the big picture, Rob. The Boss went over there with one goal: that was to keep things stable in a way which preserves what is a very strong position for the United States vis-à-vis China. All the tariffs remain in place except for the ones that, not China, but SCOTUS—the Supreme Court—got rid of. That’s number one. Number two, if you think about the Iran War right now, I don’t know if your viewers know this, but every single ballistic missile Iran fires at Israel or Saudi or UAE or anybody in between, that’s powered by Chinese rocket fuel, number one. Number two, every drone that delivers a strike across the Middle East, including at American military bases, those are components from where? Communist China. And number three, we beat—we pushed the Russians out of Afghanistan, then the Soviet Union, by sending the Taliban Stinger missiles.
SCHMITT: Right.
DR. NAVARRO: Knocked their aircraft out of the sky. China can do the same thing with a Stinger equivalent called MANPADS [Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems]. Okay? Now, China, what we got out of that was they say they’re not going to do any of that. Now, we’re going to look very closely at the land routes. We’ve got the sea routes done and we’ve got the air routes out. There’s land routes that come in from Pakistan, from other—Turkistan—all sorts of places. We’re going to watch that carefully, but so far, at least, they did that. That’s a big deal.
SCHMITT: Right.
DR. NAVARRO: Now, look at what we’ve done too, Rob. Venezuela. Chinese are out of there. Cuba. Out of there. That’s the Donroe Doctrine. And the United States military right now controls the Strait of Hormuz, which means it controls the supply of oil, not just the China, but to the entire East. Okay? The Far East as they used to call it. So, this was—
SCHMITT: You’re making, I mean—there’s some big progress. I want to just ask you real quick, if I could—
NAVARRO: People are missing that.
SCHMITT: Yeah.
DR, NAVARRO: That story was not told, Rob.
SCHMITT: No, it largely wasn’t told. And what you guys are doing foreign policy-wise makes a lot of sense when you look at it more broadly, and I understand that. I want to ask you though, real quick—
DR. NAVARRO: Sure.
SCHMITT: The criticisms over giving China somewhat of an economic lifeline as they’re struggling in this moment. Trump and Bessent saying they’re going to allow Chinese investment into the U.S., claiming it would not be in sectors that they classify as national security threats. It does seem like Trump has changed his mind a little bit about the threat of China, which was something that he’s talked about a lot in his, you know, 10 years of being, you know, a national politician. Has he softened a little bit on the idea of China getting access to the United States?
NAVARRO: Not at all. And again, that’s a failure of messaging perhaps a little bit on our part because everybody’s kind of over there. But the reality is, on the investment side, okay, all we’re doing is doing what the Chinese have started to do to us and the rest of the world. We’re going to watch very carefully what they try to put in. Think of it as an extra layer to the CFIUS process, which watches that. So, don’t expect any major change in the status quo. The same thing with the managed trade. The deficit, I don’t know, it’s like 150 billion [dollars] a year now direct from China. We’re talking about 30 billion dollars that USTR [U.S. Trade Representative] Greer is going to be looking at, and it’s stuff like fireworks, which we don’t make at all. So, I think that the big picture here, it’s like, look, what have the Chinese taught us, Rob, since the days of Nixon? What do they do to us? They flatter us and then they make promises they never keep. Okay? How about we take a page out of their book? So, when the Boss flatters the Chinese, hey, think about the historical arc there and draw your own conclusions. Connect those dots.
SCHMITT: Okay. All right. I got it. Peter Navarro, good to see you from the White House. Thanks so much.
NAVARRO: Always a pleasure, Rob.
SCHMITT: All right, brother. Okay.
